[jwills]

I've recently incorporated one arm hangs with some pulley assistance into my program. I find them much easier when I lock off my elbows around 90 degrees. I've seen others do them with a fully extended elbow and facing the fingerboard pretty straight on. Does anyone know of expected differences in strength gains between hanging fully extended versus locked off at 90 degrees?   

[36chambers]

I've no idea about differences in strength gains, but I find the hang difficulties to be more or less the same.

Do you twist at all when hanging with a straight arm? I'm more likely to start twisting if my arm is straight, which sometimes undermines the hang.

[Stabbsy]

I've recently incorporated one arm hangs with some pulley assistance into my program. I find them much easier when I lock off my elbows around 90 degrees. I've seen others do them with a fully extended elbow and facing the fingerboard pretty straight on. Does anyone know of expected differences in strength gains between hanging fully extended versus locked off at 90 degrees?   

I've experienced a similar problem, but I'd put it down to shoulder/rotator cuff weakness or some sort of shoulder stability/engagement problem. Might be the wrong way to go, but I ended up doing the one-arm hangs with some lock (so you end up more sideways on to the edge) and separately trying to strengthen my shoulders. I guess doing both versions with different levels of assistance might allow you to even out the discrepancy over time.

[AMorris]

I have always been of the mindset that locking turns it into more of a compound exercise by using your arm strength to put more force through the fingers, and bringing your body into a stronger position (i.e. side on). With this in mind, my hypothesis is that front on straight (or mosty straight) arm with engaged shoulder isolates the fingers more, forcing you to generate the necessary force with the fingers alone. This may be complete garbage, but it is something I have thought about quite a bit, and explains why it does appear to be easier to hang one arm locked initially. Shoulder strength does seem to apply quite heavily too, as someone has mentioned.

[tomtom]

Which is closest to how you might actually use that strength when climbing...?

[abarro81]

Do both. After all, you need to be strong in all arm positions, and there are subtle differences in how you hold an edge straight vs bent (e.g. how much you can twist the fingers into it, engaging the back half of the hand more).

[jshaw]

Interesting thread, thought I'd add my +1 into the mix.

I recently switched from 2 arm weighted hangs to 1 arm hangs with a pulley. I found I could hang without the pulley when side on to the fingerboard with a bend at the elbow. But, I needed assistance from the pully when front on to the fingerboard with elbow reasonably straight.

I put this down to shoulder and lat engagement / strength but interested to read what others think.

[AMorris]

I put this down to shoulder and lat engagement / strength but interested to read what others think.

That sounds about right really, the strongest position does appear to be perpendicular to the hold, since it seems to allow you to engage more/stronger muscle groups. It also takes a reasonable amount of shoulder stability to prevent rotating under too, which is often the limiting factor for most people when they start to drop the pulley system and just hang, since the pulley also acts as a bracing hand to prevent rotation.

[BicepsMou]

Do both. After all, you need to be strong in all arm positions, and there are subtle differences in how you hold an edge straight vs bent (e.g. how much you can twist the fingers into it, engaging the back half of the hand more).

+1 : same here - when being bent arm / side on, i get more load on back 3 which makes my hold stronger vs. straight arm / front on, which loads my index more and makes it more challenging (to me)

Guess it comes down to individual factors re which one is easier:
* biomechanics, notably relative finger lenghts
* shoulder girdle stability in different shoulder joint angles to counter-act rotation, although this can be easily mitigated by using a pulley system with a very light weight (and eventually adding the corresponding counter-weight to your body), as recommended by the Lattice crew

Anectdotal evidence (mostly from videos when peope are trying hard 1-armed on hangs boards) seem to indicate that most people are stronger in bent-arm positions, unless getting really strong fingers, at least relative to their lock off strength ;-)

[Ru]

I would imagine that there is a large biomechanical difference when contracting the finger flexor muscles with the forearm pronated (as they would be when pulling down on a flat hold) and fully supinated (e.g. undercutting) that makes it worth training both side on and front on, on a fingerboard .

[highrepute]

another view on this. I recently had trouble hanging straight armed and doing monkey bars (couldn't swing around on a straight arm at all). I found that stretching really helped me with this. The stretches were aimed at my pecs and getting my arms behind me.

[tomtom]

another view on this. I recently had trouble hanging straight armed and doing monkey bars (couldn't swing around on a straight arm at all). I found that stretching really helped me with this. The stretches were aimed at my pecs and getting my arms behind me.

:D having a small child and now visiting many playgrounds has taught me that I am absolutely shit at monkey bars but can boulder 7B